Tensions mounted in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Thursday as police launched overnight raids at the residences of the members of a rights movement and took many of them into custody, triggering violent clashes between the demonstrators and police personnel in one of the AJK towns, witnesses and official sources said.
AJK’s home minister Waqar Noor told reporters on Thursday that some 70 arrests had been made across the state. However, those who had assured that they would not create law and order problems had been released, he said, without providing their exact figure.
Late last month, the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee, which has been spearheading the rights movement for almost an year, had announced that a “long march” would be staged on state capital Muzaffarabad on May 11, in protest against the “non-fulfilment of the commitments made in writing by an official reconciliation committee of cabinet members on December 23, 2024, in pursuance of which a notification was also issued by the services and general administration department on February 4, 2024.
The main bone of contention was the action committee’s demand that electricity should be provided to consumers in accordance with the generation cost of hydel power in AJK. On this, the ministerial committee had pledged that the cost would be worked out "because the government was committed to providing relief to its people."
However, “instead of taking the announcement for the May 11 strike seriously, the government showed a nonchalant attitude which was followed by jitteriness and imprudence," said Hafeez Hamdani, action committee’s media secretary in Muzaffarabad.
“Rather they took steps, such as deployment of civil armed forces from Pakistan to provoke the territory’s civil society which had been exercising its democratic right of peaceful protests to secure the legitimate rights of people,” he added.
In his recent press talks, Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq had emphatically asserted that the civil armed forces, mainly the Frontier and Punjab constabularies, had not been summoned to be unleashed on protestors but to ensure protection of sensitive installations.
While warning that those trying to disturb law and order would be dealt with an iron hand by the local police, he had repeatedly acknowledged peaceful protest as the right of every citizen.
However, on Wednesday-Thursday night, police raided the residences of prominent leaders and activists of the rights movement as well as those of their relations in different parts of the state to apprehend them “for violation of law and order.”
In Muzaffarabad, police were unsuccessful in arresting Shaukat Nawaz Mir, the elected leader of the traders, despite raids at his residence and that of his sister, but at least eight others, including two student leaders, were taken into custody.
In Dadyal, a tehsil of Mirpur district along the banks of Mangla Dam, around 22 activists, mostly traders, were picked in overnight raids, only to invite clashes by their colleagues and other citizens with police, during which many people from both sides had sustained injuries.
According to witnesses, when traders came to know about the arrests of their colleagues, they staged a demonstration in Maqbool Butt Shaheed Chowk, chanting slogans against the government, administration and police.
Video footage showed that after a heated argument the demonstrators and police clashed with each other. While the demonstrators pelted the police with stones, the police responded with baton charge and fierce teargas shelling.
Some teargas shells also landed in a state-run girls’ school, which deteriorated the condition of several girls who were rushed to the hospital for treatment.
Witnesses said the town wore the looks of a battlefield throughout the day, adding that on some occasions, the demonstrators appeared to have overpowered the police.
The home minister alleged that the demonstrators had also held an administration official hostage for four hours, apart from damaging an official vehicle.
In Muzaffarabad, Shaukat Nawaz Mir issued a video message from a hideout, wherein he announced that owing to the “brutal treatment” of demonstrators in Dadyal, the protest call for May 11 had been shifted to May 10.
“… all businesses would remain shut and vehicles off the roads across Azad Jammu and Kashmir in general and in Muzaffarabad in particular from tonight,” he said.
“I call upon the people of [Azad] Kashmir to come out for their rights. If you fail...[], you will never be able to get your rights,” he said.
Meanwhile, at a press conference three cabinet members who were part of the official reconciliation committee, claimed that their negotiations with the joint action committee were going on smoothly and they were unable to understand why the latter had announced the May 11 strike and protest.
“The government does not want a situation of conflict and its doors are open for negotiations even today,” they said.
Tariq Naqash
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